Posted
by
Zonk
on Saturday November 17, 2007 @02:28AM
from the funny-is-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder dept.

destinyland writes "Boston police arrested artist 'Zebbler' for installing L.E.D. devices that promoted Aqua Teen Hunger Force (after police mistook them for bombs). He's finally shared the real behind-the-scenes story about his arrest and release. He describes his interrogation ('My interrogator gave me nothing but carrots to eat') and remembers a surreal exchange with a police officer. ('My daughter is a huge fan of you ... So, did you really mean to blow up Boston?') Now his latest project is a cool high-definition/surround sound installation for an event called RIP.MIX.BURN.BAM.PFA."

Considering the amount of explosions in ATHF, I consider the threat to be completely valid.
Remember everyone, terrorists clearly mark the bombs with flashing lights, to be widely apparent to everyone, so that they have a chance to observe the bomb before it explodes.

Just because it alarmed the public, didn't mean he knew it'd happen. I think intent should have a lot to do with things. Anyway, people are just retarded. I was in Boston that day. I wish I had seen it!

It's funny you mention that. We had a similar incident not too long ago at my university.

The cleaning staff for the computer/engineering building saw some creepy guy going through the building at 5:30am, way earlier than people normally show up in the morning. They didn't really think anything of it, until they got to the third floor.

On the third floor, displayed in the window of one of the offices, was a timer. And it was counting. Up.

Wires could be seen coming off of it, but nobody could tell where they went.

Campus security was called, the police were called, bomb-sniffing dogs were called in, the building was shut down.

It turned out (of course) to be just a diagnostic display. The "wires" leading away from the device went up to a curtain rod. They were holding it up.

The funny thing was, it had been there for weeks. The cleaning crew must have seen it, but they didn't remember it being there. And why was it counting UP and not DOWN? We've all seen 24, we know which way timers are supposed to go.

But in an outbreak of common sense, nobody was charged with a "hoax", nobody was arrested, and nobody is in jail. The cleaning crew made a mistake (and apologized later!), and that was the end of that.

I think this is a good example of how things should work. Ideally a strange device like that ought to be reported if there is a genuine concern about it. I suppose it could have hypothetically been a poorly designed bomb.But reporting the device really shouldn't automatically trigger anything beyond a short investigation,unless there are explosives found, or further evidence that it was intended to be dangerous.

Just because in the case of the article, people from Boston are that ignorant overall and are try

I am lucky that the city I live in has a very low percentage of police officers per capita, and a high degree of competition to get in. Even to be a transit cop here you need a postsecondary degree and a few years' policing experience.

Contrast this with the TV promo I saw a few years back, on Detroit's Fox affiliate, which announced that the Detroit Police Department was hiring, and a high school diploma was (I kid you not) a plus.

The goal of terrorism is to effect change in a society through fear. Every time you and your fraidy-cat buddies jumps because something reminds you of a crappy episode of 24 you give legitimacy to those tactics. Not only that, you encourage the subversion of the necessary civil liberties inherent to the United States by government forces. Instead of plotzing every time we see some unfamiliar blinkenlightz, we should be thinking about root causes. All the security in the world is not worth the price of my freedom. I'm surprised you don't feel the same way.

Every time you and your fraidy-cat buddies jumps because something reminds you of a crappy episode of 24 you give legitimacy to those tactics

This means that the terrorists have already won in their "war"... or at least they have succeeded in their plans. The objective of terrorism is not to kill millions of people, I am sure the terrorists (whomever they were, domestics or internationals) who crashed the planes did not imagined that the towers would collapse!

Over the past few years, I have come to consider the police as not-too-intelligent bullies. Actions reported can only be explained by a lack of rational thought (in favor of blindly following rules, or blind over-reaction), yet this extract from the article makes one rethink that assessment:

I cooperated fully -- since I had nothing to hide -- but at times it was uncanny as to how convincing he was. He made me want to tell him my deepest secrets -- a genuinely weird feeling. I had to snap out of it a few times.

It is required in the UK for recordings to be made of all interrogations. Why is this not the case in the US? If the police are following the rules, they would have nothing to hide, would they?

Watch Law & Order. It's an American crime drama that follows the police through the investigation to interrogation.Now, realize that this is a TV show and that they're putting the best possible spin on the way the cops behave. Watch the tactics they use. Realize that these are fictional tactics, spun in the best way possible.

It's really quite scary. Americans EXPECT their police to act that way! They glorify it in their media!

Another fun, more recent example was some video I saw of a bunch of Boston pol

Another fun, more recent example was some video I saw of a bunch of Boston police officers. It was night, and there was a large line of police officers in riot gear. Some were on horses. I was trying to figure out what was happening in Boston that would justify such a police response. The answer? The local baseball team had won the baseball championship. The police response was against fans, celebrating the victory in the streets. The Boston response to people celebrating a sporting victory is to call out t

"I don't know what American baseball fans are like, but in the UK, well... go to any Premiership football match and there are mounted police everywhere. Riot gear is unusual; they're mostly there for crowd control. Mostly. Go to a major game - let's say, oh... Liverpool vs Manchester United - and there'll be a serious police presence. Wherever you have tens of thousands of people in one place where emotions run high and a great deal of beer has been drunk, there's a danger of violence. And that's today; bac

The answer? The local baseball team had won the baseball championship. The police response was against fans, celebrating the victory in the streets. The Boston response to people celebrating a sporting victory is to call out the riot police. According to the reporter, the last time something like this happened, the Boston police actually killed a fan, using a "less than lethal" weapon that proved not to live up to its name.

You mean to prevent stuff like the riots in Detroit when the Pistons won the champi

If the police are following the rules, they would have nothing to hide, would they?

That is a very interesting point -- not least in light of the popularity of the government's "if you have nothing to hide, we're sure you won't mind us monitoring your every move" argumentation. Tit for tat, one might say.

If memory serves, it was something like two weeks if they suspect you of terrorism, two weeks is a very long time, I wouldn't be surprised that in two weeks the police can make you sign whatever they like..

Hmm, remind me how long can the police hold someone in UK? If memory serves, it was something like two weeks if they suspect you of terrorism, two weeks is a very long time, I wouldn't be surprised that in two weeks the police can make you sign whatever they like...

It used to be that in England they'd keep you for seven long days; God help you if ever you're caught on these shores, though, because it's been extended to 28 days. Apparently they can't always extract a confession in this time, though, becaus

I'm not 100% sure about the new laws because I haven't studied law since they brought them in but the way it used to work is they could only stop you contacting members of your family to explain the situation if they have reasonable suspicion that this will directly lead to the people you will contact destroying evidence (or carrying out other crimes). They need to convince a magistrait (who are just a members of the public) of this and then it is (or at least was) only for a limited time (it was about 2 da

I blame the paramilitary and militaristic mentality in most police forces. In fact, I would go so far as to say I don't even like the term "police force."

I'm a police officer in Florida. There are several principles I follow which have resulted in my getting only two complaints against me in the past two years.

1. I'm a peace officer, not a law enforcement officer. My goal is the peaceful resolution of conflict, using the law to do so.2. You cannot insult me. I take offense at nothing while on the job.3. I will never threaten to arrest someone: I will only warn them that they can be arrested for their actions and will give them several options for peacefully resolving the issue.4. I will always explain my reasons behind my actions to anyone who asks, so long as safety permits.5. I will never blindly follow the rules.6. When in doubt, ask myself if I could talk with my family about what I was about to do to someone without feeling ashamed.

The military mindset is POISON to the civilian police service. If I could do only one thing to improve police relations with the community and performance levels, I would eliminate everything remotely resembling the military. No sergeants, no lieutenants, no military-looking uniforms. Cops should look, think, and act like the civilians they are.

You seem to be a reasonable and responsible officer. You've recognized that the public has a growing dislike and distrust for your profession. Other than the excellent principles you stated that you follow, what are you doing to spread them further and repair the damage caused by your colleagues?

An accused terrorist, on the other hand, should tell the truth because a terrorist might not have much legal protection at times.

... which in turn gives the interrogator the right to torture^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hspecially interrogate the accused terrorist or hand him over to a government that has more experience at this, because the fucking terrorist refuses to acknowledge that he in fact is one.

OTOH: It is not your average cop that is doing that sort of thing, for the most part terrorist (such as Hicks) are political prisoners being used by exjudicial forces to "send a message". Your average cop recives a "bomb threat", he calls the bomb squad and clears the area, seems like (inconvienient) common sense to me.

The rest of the bullshit is simply paper-work and politics to cover the fact that "dob in a terrorist" schemes do nothing except scare the shit out the general population, granted there ma

Sure these things happen from time to time but cops and judges are simply paid control freaks that are obstensibly hired to stop us from living in anarchy, worst case senario is something like Blackwater or the SS (best case is a fantasy world where we are all just nice to each other).

From 50yrs of life experience I know that cops make all sorts of threats but the actions you describe are not a routine occurence [google.com.au] here in Australia. If you want to to be treated with respect then be as polite and firm with

"What is relevant is how it was handled by the authoritative figures and in this case it was handled poorly."

I know, they released them back onto the street where they can continue to buy my personal information, jam my telephone, clog my mailbox, and harass me with dancing aliens to try to sell me life insurance/mortgages/penis pills I don't want. A pity.

You're just kneejerking about a trivial issue that annoys you (and one which happens to pay for a lot of free content you consume). If you work for a reasonably large corporation you can bet that somewhere, someone is doing something officially in the name of the corporation which is screwing someone else out of their money, health, etc., and you're supporting that by working for the company. That's why I asked for an example: it's easy to spot the bad stuff that companies do if you look. If nothing else

The same thing would happen to anyone. The problem is not what they did, it's a paranoid interpretation of what they did that's the problem. A guerilla beautification squad installing boxes of flowers would have been arrested and vilified too.

I liked this guy's hair comments to the press way back and normally I'd see someone like him as a pretentious "artsy" douche.. you know, typical dreadlocked pothead graphic design/art major trying to look cool, but the fact is his "bomb threats" were blown out of proportion by the media. Do I think it makes sense it was investigated? Yes. Do I think it makes sense he was treated like crap when he was basically a adman (albeit an adman who resembles oldfashioned adman the way a Facebook engineer resembles an IBM engineer) that was hired to place ads for a well known product/company? No. I think it makes sense the lights were investigated and the men questioned but I think it's ridiculous that interrogation continued after they found out that their superiors were Viacom (okay not superiors per se but the people who outsourced to them). Viacom should have been the "target" of the authorities after this simple bit of information was found out.

Anyway, that was a bit of a rant but my point is, I liked the way this guy handled the media way back (because the media, frankly, deserves that...I appreciate what they do, but every now and then they need to be reminded that they aren't the ones in control but the ones who document and their emotional manipulation and constant spinning deserves to be checked). But on this interview two quotes in particular made me realize he is separate:

[Psychedelics] did not seem to offer a path to salvation, just a widening of perspective.

and

One doesn't need psychedelics to achieve those kinds of realizations however.

I really think it was good of him to say that, because yeah, he's clearly someone who isn't a stranger to drugs but he offers a level headed view that's not overly self serving a biased. Too many people think drugs (especially psychedelics) answer all their questions and solve everything and sound like selfserving douchebags. They talk about discovering the answer while taking LSD and it's so pretentious and dickish and done to fit an image. Here's a guy who does them (no problem with that here) and then proceeds to say they helped a bit but they aren't necessary and maybe he enjoyed them but he's clearly not going to judge someone who doesn't do them. I've never tried psychedelics and I also no longer smoke marijuana, but I am most definitely not an anti-drug type; I just am glad to see someone saying drugs can be fun but they aren't necessary. People who do drugs and say that's the only way are almost worse than people who don't do drugs and say that's the only way because people who do drugs generally take pride in their self-described "open minds". So kudos to him for basically saying "yeah I used drugs but you don't have to and you can still get to the same point regardless of your choice."

Maybe they made such a big deal about it to get more Government funding? Lot'$ of taxpayer buck$ out there in the Homeland $ecurity biz.

Conspicuous Hustle - A trick one of my former Chief Engineers used to make it look like he was doing something when the so called problem / issue was a no brainer. He'd make it look like a big deal, set up a "Tiger Team", expended lots of resources, got more budget, manpower, lots of visability, etc. and became the "Hero that saved the project". This was when I worked f

A trick one of my former Chief Engineers used to make it look like he was doing something when the so called problem / issue was a no brainer. He'd make it look like a big deal, set up a "Tiger Team", expended lots of resources, got more budget, manpower, lots of visability, etc. and became the "Hero that saved the project".

Well, how else would he maintain his reputation as a miracle worker? I assume he also multiplied his estimates to fix the problem by four.

Admitedly terrorists are morons, thankfully, or we'd be in a lot more trouble. The point is say if I were trying to hurt a lot of people I wouldn't hide the weapon I'd want it to draw attention. Lets say you pull a trailer up and park it on a busy street and have a large sign that says to advertise your new mobile coffee francise you were giving away iPod Nanos to the first hundred customers that buy coffee. You're guaranteed a hundred people will be waiting at the mentioned opening time and probably a whole lot more. The Russians used the technique in Afganistan and went so far as to make explosives shaped like toys trageting kids. If you want to be sure to harm people you want to draw attention but the right type of attention so it seems perfectly normal. A trailer where you seemed to be selling coffee or ice cream wouldn't attract the attention of the police unless they wanted to check your permits but they wouldn't do that until you opened for business. Hiding a bomb in a display that is designed to draw attention does make sense. If they ignored them and they did blow up then people would be screaming. The police were doing their jobs being careful but they came down hard on them afterwards out of annoyance and the fact they felt foolish but what option did they have? Yes they shouldn't have tried to throw the book at them because it's an overreaction. They meant it as kind of a gorilla advertisement and gorilla actions like placing displays without permission or permits has some risk. The police handled the aftermath poorly but they had to know there was some potential for trouble. I'm sure they were expecting a possible fine not the third degree and a possible vacation at Gitmo.

A trailer where you seemed to be selling coffee or ice cream wouldn't attract the attention of the police unless they wanted to check your permits but they wouldn't do that until you opened for business. Hiding a bomb in a display that is designed to draw attention does make sense. If they ignored them and they did blow up then people would be screaming.

So, if I were to go into business with a fleet of ice cream vans, and one fine summer's day my vans are driving around Boston giving away promotional ice cream and drawing quite a crowd, you would say the police ought to close down the roads, bring the whole city to a standstill, and arrest me on charges of perpetrating a bomb hoax, because my vans might be bombs?

You've failed to distinguish between attracting attention and attracting attention to something that looks like a bomb.The former is a perfectly evil way to draw a crowd which does not anticipate danger and hurt them. The latter is a really, really stupid tactic. Even if, for some reason, they were convinced that it would work as a means of reverse psychology, it obviously doesn't. I should also mention that the size and placement of the "devices" guaranteed that they would be useless as weapons. They w

He also has a reputation in Boston -- and increasingly around the world -- as a popular VJ, video artist, performance artist and painter. Sentenced to 80 hours community service for his crime, he made the most of it, painting a delightfully trippy mural for Spaulding (physical) Rehabilitation Center. He was also recently voted the #12 VJ in the world by London-based DJ Magazine and was named Boston's Best Artist by Improper Bostonian Magazine. Zebbler also recently appeared in Berkeley, Caliifornia where his surround sound HD projection set was part of the opening reception for RIP.MIX.BURN.BAM.PFA at the Pacific Film Archives -- an exhibit that "celebrates the cultural and artistic practice of remix."

I also have a reputation in my home town - and increasingly around the world - as a popular commenter, flame artist and commiter, and recently visited another town to participate in a cultural and artistic celebration of trolling, where my computer was used in the opening reception. Furthermore, I was recently voted #11 train spotter, and was elected best train spotter by my local newspaper, and won 5 pounds of meat, which I donated to the community. If that didn't sufficiently impress you, my toenails are

If you get into a time machine and get back to the dark ages and you put an image of a dragon in the middle of a mediaeval city you can laugh as you watch the crowd getting crazy and paranoid... until they catch and burn you as a witch (and if you don't look like one, they will make you look like a witch, probably by comparing your weight with that of a duck).

Now, fast forward to 2007. Modern enlightened age you think? Think again... If you install some electronic stuff in a modern US city, you can laugh as you watch the crowd getting crazy and paranoid... until they catch you. What happens next depends very much on how white your skin is, whether you have a beard, and whether your name sounds Muslim. An English name combined with white skin and no facial hair will result in you getting your freedom after some interrogation in a police station, but if you have the "wrong" demographic characteristics then you will end up in a nasty camp in Cuba (By the way I find it interesting how they chose to set up Guantanamo on the same island as a communist dictatorship).

The same can happen if you get into an airport with an electronic nametag on your chest.

Or, perhaps if you walk to enter a train with your iPod wires visible from your pocket.

Welcome to a society where everything that deviates from what is considered normal is equated with terrorism. Very soon every kind of behaviour, from what you see on your computer screen (Treacherous Computing will help with this) to what clothes you wear will be controlled by formal bureaucracies by force of violence if you don't comply. Not really because your behaviour will constitute a real threat, but only because your behaviour is inconsistent with that of a slave.

When (or if) this terrorism fear paranoia passes, future historians will discuss our post-911 age with great interest and will consider it as a prime example of how civilisations can sabotage themselves and self-destruct forgetting hundreds of years of societal and civil evolution.

people who watch a lot of cartoon network think everyone knows what's up with cartoon network and will laugh at athfpeople who watch a lot of fox news think everyone knows knows what's up with fox news and will yell along with oreillypeople who watch a lot of letterman can't understand how new yorkers can't recognize rupert ji isn't a deranged waiternone of these assumptions are remotely universalmisunderstandings are bound to happenone big one did

Either the Boston police are totally incompetent, or the police in all the other cities where these things showed up are totally incompetent (depending on whether there really is a threat or not). My bet is on the former.

Educational standards and common sense standards for police and elected officials in Boston certainly have fallen since Revolutionary War times when John Adams and others in Massachusetts led the way for Independence and for the rights of man in society. Now Boston is known for ignorance, thuggery, incompetence and a place willing to take the rights of humans away for the false security afforded by uniformed idiots with their self presented jangling medals and uniform bling while they all whore their way in front of cameras at the least provocation to strut and self congratulate each other about how well they are doing. Boston is a joke and an embarrassment. That's my two cents.

Zebbler had a good point in regards to the business of TV news. Fear prods people to watch TV. The newstainment companies take advantage of that. "I Wash My TV in Fear" is a video show he puts on consisting of the most fearful snippets of TV news recorded over a couple of days. I wonder if it might be possible to create a horror movie that way.

The cops may well have believed it was all a misunderstanding, but their job is to gather evidence of any possible crime. After you've been Mirandized, it's a game in which they try to get as much information out of you as possible without overstepping their constitutional limitations. If they act hostile towards you, it doesn't mean they are actually hostile, any more than a friendly act means you can trust them.

Good cop or bad cop, it doesn't matter, once they've brought you in for something they're going to try to get you to give them evidence of a crime, or if they have solid evidence of a small crime, to get you to give them evidence of a bigger crime. In this case, by the time these guys were being interrogated the cops knew the devices weren't bombs. The cops were trying to get the guy to say something like this, "We weren't planting bombs! We just thought if we could close the subways down we'd get a lot of free publicity for our movie!" Bingo, they've just promoted a case of advertising without the proper permits into the intentional creation of a public nuisance. Armed with this, they throw the small fry back in order to get the genius behind the stunt, which is good police work. The corollary of this is that when there is no larger crime, the small fry endure some tough and threatening sounding talk.

While normally I think cops should be polite and deferential to citizens, this one process is inherently ugly and manipulative, which is why you want a lawyer present in a police interrogation, even if your conscience is clear. You don't want to admit to a crime greater than the cops have evidence for, just because they are threatening to pin an even larger crime on you. Without a lawyer present, the system is inherently unfair and dangerous to the innocent.

Well put."My daughter is a fan of yours... were you trying to blow up Boston" is just silly. You have to realize, innocent or not, that once the authorities get into their heads that you are guilty, they are going to try every asinine, stupid, and ridiculous theory and game they can come up with to box you into a "guilty" position.

Once they've decided that you are a "bad guy", they generally don't apply logic or common sense except in pursuit of proving you to be a "bad guy". That's what the rules are for.

RIP.MIX.BURN.BAM.PFA is an exhibition at the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive. The idea is for artists to take two selected digital works and remix them how they see fit, in a real Creative Commons kind of way. The neat thing about this is that the public (i.e. us) is also invited to do the same.http://bampfa.berkeley.edu/digitalart/ripmixburn [berkeley.edu]

I go to the PFA fairly often, but I regrettably still haven't been to the BAM, even after four years.

I am also curious about the MIT girl. The broadcast media hugely exaggerated the story from the beginning then slowly throughout the day they backpeddelled their original descriptions of how it went down. I can only assume the lack of follow-up is because they don't want to have to say, "Well, we originally said she had a circuit board with wires and putty on it, but in fact it was just some flashing leds and wires."

Star Simpson got a good lawyer and has chosen a trial without a jury scheduled for December 3rd. The charges against her sound like the same ones against the ATHF guys - something like intentional use of a hoax device.

I believe her lawyer was wise to pick a bench trial as the local press continues to hype the event, constantly referring to her as a prankster [bostonherald.com] and dressing like a suicide bomber [bostonherald.com] and the average joe on the street sure seems to think she should burn at the stake.

Because a bomb squad, who should have handled the dismantling of these devices, should have known in 5 minutes it wasn't a fucking bomb. Now either:
1) they weren't called in so the police are incompetent.
2) they were called in and ignored so the police are incompetent.
3) they were called in and thought it was a bomb so they were incompetent.
In any event, someone was incompetent in reacting to these LED sticky thingies. It certainly wasn't the PR company.

One thing that is important to remember now is that as soon as the "terror" word is used you get people that see themselves as James Bond without the benefit of training or experience coming out of the woodwork and overwhelming the professional law enforcement. You then see a big fuss kicked and attempts to blame the victim because rules and procedures have been broken so admitting a mistake could result in some dismissals.

I doubt that a bomb squad was involved for more than a couple of minutes and it is l

Because a bomb squad, who should have handled the dismantling of these devices, should have known in 5 minutes it wasn't a fucking bomb.

You don't remember? The bomb squad actually detonated a charge over one of the devices.

One wise slashdotter pointed out that all of his electronic devices in conspicuous public places had a tag on it describing what the device was and who to contact for questions. In the future, that's pretty much the only way to avoid this kind of bullcrap because my intuition tells

Because a bomb squad, who should have handled the dismantling of these devices, should have known in 5 minutes it wasn't a fucking bomb.

If you read the timeline [bpdnews.com] of that day you'll see that the police did determine pretty quickly that is wasn't a bomb. The main issue during the day was that the streets had to be be closed so investigators could safely access the devices - even if the authorities didn't think it was a bomb, the street would still have to be closed to workers could safely remove them. There was also the issue that a real pipe bomb turned up at New England Medical Center during that ordeal.

As I wrote before [slashdot.org], the biggest mistake those guys made was hanging the devices off of public property - even before 9/11, doing something like that is just guaranteed to get the bomb squad out there (and contrary to popular opinion, the device that was first called in to the police had only been there for less than 24 hours). Some of the other devices on storefronts though had been there longer.

IMHO the police reaction in this one instance was reasonable - up to the arrest & prosecution part. There were no mass evacuations, no arrests of Middle-eastern people for being Middle-Eastern. They closed the roads, investigated the devices, and reopened the roads. The arrests and press releases after that though were clearly CYA.

On the other hand, the arrest of Star Simpson was a fucking travesty, and my alma mater's response to the incident [mit.edu] ("reckless"? WTF? Is wearing a blinking tie to the airport also reckless?) has ended my participation in their alumni fundraising activities.

Because he wasn't doing it safely. You want to hang off the side of a highway and get yourself or someone else killed hanging an electric sign for an advertiser, go ahead. But if the city or state agency sends an employee to do that without the proper
safety precautions [state.ma.us] and that worker (or an innocent bystander) gets killed, that agency will be
held [osha.gov] accountable [ntsb.gov].

he wasn't doing it safely. You want to hang off the side of a highway and get yourself or someone else killed

Actually, from what I heard, he used a stick to lift the devices into position. Therefore, a stick with a hook on the end could be used to pull the devices down, after, perhaps closing the traffic lane under it for 30 seconds. No need to "close the street" for the day.

Even if a 'cherry picker' truck was needed to 'safely' get the worker up the 10 feet or so, that also only requires the closing on a

Therefore, a stick with a hook on the end could be used to pull the devices down, after, perhaps closing the traffic lane under it for 30 seconds

That assumes that you know what it is, and you know how it's attached. Even if you proceed with the assumption that it's not a bomb, there are other issues that a worker needs to be aware of - for example, is it powered using AC power ( a shock hazzard)? How is it attached to the structure? Is there any identifying information on it that authorizes its placement? Are there any "surprises" like bottles of urine or bags of feces behind it? (you may think that last one was contrived, but I've seen it first

Bomb squads don't dismantle suspected bombs in 5 minutes because they are afraid of booby traps, or terrorists setting them off by radio when they arrive, or just setting off the bomb accidentally.

Depends on the definition of "suspected bomb" -- there were plenty of pictures and live footage [bradleysalmanac.com] in the press of a cop holding up one of the "suspected bombs" from nearly the very start of that day.

I can understand caution but not mean spirited incompetence. It should have been apparent from the devices size and placement that they were not a real threat. I can understand caution and further tests to make sure because we should not assume terrorists are competent. What I can't understand is bile like yours and vilification of the artists. They were not terrorists and should not be treated that way. "Terror suspect" is just another phrase for "you have no rights" and that is a larger issue than to